Nick Estes, assistant professor in the American Studies Department at The University of New Mexico, will be at the UNM Bookstore on Wednesday, April 17 at 2 p.m. to speak about and sign his latest book Our History is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance (Verso, 2019).
In 2016, a small protest encampment at the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, initially established to block construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, grew to be the largest Indigenous protest movement in the 21st century. Water Protectors knew this battle for native sovereignty had already been fought many times before, and that, even after the encampment was gone, their anticolonial struggle would continue.
In Our History Is the Future, Estes traces traditions of Indigenous resistance that led to the #NoDAPL movement. Our History Is the Future is at once a work of history, a manifesto, and an intergenerational story of resistance.
Estes was a guest editor with Melanie K. Yazzie of a special issue of Wicazo Sa Review (Spring 2016) on the legacy of Dakota scholar Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, one of the founders of American Indian Studies. His film and book reviews can be found in Environmental History, Journal of Native American and Indigenous Studies Journal, Harvard Business Review, and Abolition Journal.
In 2015, his reporting on border town violence and racism for Indian Country Today won a Third Place Prize for Excellence in Beat Reporting from the Native American Journalism Association. Estes’ writing is also featured in Jacobin, Indian Country Today, The Funambulist Magazine, High Country News, and La Jicarita.
He was a historical consultant for the episode “Standing Rock II,” for Vice’s 2017 award-winning documentary series “Rise,” directed by Michelle Latimer, and a research consultant for the documentary film Ladonna Harris: Indian 101 (2016), directed by Julianna Brannum.
Interviews with Estes have appeared on Native American Calling, Cultures of Energy Podcast, and in Policing the Planet (Verso, 2016), a book edited by Jordan T. Camp and Christina Heatherton.
Contact Lisa Walden at 277-7494 or lwalden@unm.edu for more information.